1. Field of the Invention
The invention herein pertains to an apparatus and method for embroidering garments and the like and particularly pertains to apparatus for holding embroidery hoop sets that frame the fabric during the embroidering process.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Objectives of the Invention
There is a greater demand today than ever before for hats, shirts, pants, jackets and other items to bear a trademark, logo or other identifying markings. While printing on items with ink is still used in many instances, consumer demand has increased for high quality, stitched, sewn and embroidered goods for first class, professional markings. Such increased demand has impacted the embroidery trade and many embroidering companies now have single sewing head embroidering machines or multi-head machines which are computer programmed. While multi-head machines have greatly increased production output, such machines are extremely expensive and may cost over $100,000.00 each, thereby limiting their availability to small businesses. Owners of embroidering machinery have had to increase the number of shifts and number of days worked per week to increase their capacity due to growing demands for their products. However sometimes even seven day work weeks of three shifts do not meet seasonal demands of certain customers and unsatisfied customers will sometimes look to foreign suppliers for their embroidering needs.
Some conventional multi-head embroidering machines are designed to embroider with an approximate twelve inch diameter hoop set comprising a large exterior hoop and a smaller interior hoop having the garment sandwiched inbetween at each sewing head or station. Thus, even for small logos (which may be only an inch or two (2.54-5.09 cm) in length and width), the garments are framed with said twelve inch hoop sets, thus wasting much sewing or embroidering space, not to mention the time and labor unnecessarily expended in the framing and loading process. A twelve head embroidering machine requires an operator to hoop frame twelve garments, load them onto the embroidering machine and then activate the computer controls to simultaneously embroider the twelve garments. When the embroidering is completed, the machine terminates movement and the operator then down-loads the embroidered garments and replaces them with new hoop framed garments to carry out the conventional labor intensive process once again.
Thus, with the present problems and disadvantages of conventional embroidering apparatus and methods, the present invention was conceived and one of its objects is to provide an embroidery hoop set holder which will allow a plurality of embroidery hoop sets, each set framing a separate garment to be maintained in the same space that previously was occupied by one large hoop set.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a method of embroidering and apparatus to allow a single sewing head to embroider two or more garments in sequence without stopping for down-loading.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a method of embroidering whereby a single station can be down-loaded and replaced with a fresh garment while a second garment at the same station is being embroidered.
It is also an objective of the present invention to provide an embroidery hoop set holder which will accommodate a plurality of embroidery hoop sets simultaneously.
It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide an embroidery hoop set holder which includes a means to maintain a garment in an open posture during the embroidering process.
It is still further an objective of the present invention to provide an embroidery hoop set holder which includes a fabric guard.
Various other objectives and advantages of the present invention become apparent to those skilled in the art as a more detailed description is set forth below.